Path of the Necromancer Ch. 03

She didn't know if she could take another year of parties where everyone tried to one-up the other, self-centered boys asked for her hand in marriage (or removed her from the equation altogether by going to her father), and they all pretended that what they were doing was all that mattered -as if the events going on in the rest of the world constituted a mere chess match, but beating their rival in an argument about the spirit realm or winning a duel to gain status for themselves was vital to the continued rotation of the Earth...

Emissaries from the various European leagues seemed to come to the plane they had made their own almost daily. Each of the high families' mansions and castles had portal gates they could travel through to arrive at Fel Manor on the otherworldly plane. There, they held court, did research in the massive library (though each family had their own rare tomes they hid from the others), wrote treatises about magic, held duels and various gladiatorial games, or toured the magnificent countryside that was a cross between England's Stratford-upon-Avon and France's Burgundy region.

It was also where she and the other children of the high families, who could trace their bloodlines back since before the ancient Sumerians, grew up, attended studies, acquired social etiquette, and... learned to hate each other, carrying on their family feuds and prejudices. It was there that the major supernatural players of Europe came to ask the necromancers on their gilded thrones and mountain of power for help.

'Help us,' they'd say, 'the demonic legions are trying to break into our plane of existence. The magical authority in America refuses to pay tribute or listen to our decrees. There's a contingent of mages that have learned a dark art and are now killing off mages and absorbing their power.'

On and on they'd plead and each time the nobles of the high families would sit there with bored expressions on their faces, privately glad to be asked, but not motivated enough to lift a finger in aid. Yet, when it became known that someone had stolen a valuable artifact from their treasury, they couldn't have been more willing to turn the world upside down to get it back. She'd volunteered to retrieve the talisman simply to get away from that stifling manor.

She sighed in remembrance. It was also there, she knew, bowing her head in shame, that their ancestors, having retired from the world and becoming guarded and fearful of losing their power, agreed to the motion set forth by the Leagues to condemn the practice of necromancy for those that didn't belong to a high family in order to maintain their supremacy and prestige.

She shook her head in disgust and walked out onto her room's balcony and stared out at the buildings and streets the Moon cast in silvery light. They'd tracked the talisman to this city. A group called the Tiandihui were said to have bought the artifact from the thief, though they denied it of course. The nobles had sent an expedition earlier in the year to the group's base in China to verify their innocence. The retrieval team had found nothing and the trail ended.

However, one of their intelligence sources had just recently confirmed that the Tiandihui had sent the talisman along with one of their masters to Seattle to get it out of their country when the team had investigated. Tomorrow, she would visit this Master Long and see for herself if they needed to remind the world that the necromancers who were still alive hadn't lost their teeth; that they hadn't grown weak and complacent.

She frowned as she thought about her other mission. They'd all felt the disturbance in the spiritual plane earlier today. She'd gotten a call as soon as she'd landed at Sea-Tac airport and was ordered to investigate it. Apparently, the anomaly had a lot of the elders concerned... Shrugging, she reached out her arms and called spirits to her, organizing a party of information-gatherers, happy that her additional duties would keep her away from the manor longer.

* * * * *

Ian opened the sliding door and joined Ember on the balcony, both of them having tired out their partners. She smiled up at him and scooched over so he could join her on the lounge chair. He wrapped an arm around her as she lay half on top of him. "How was she?" Ember asked with a giggle, snuggling into his embrace.

He breathed in her scent and answered with a chuckle, "I never knew Spiritfire could be used that way..."

She laughed at the awe in his voice and told him, "Dani will fit in nicely I think, but I can tell she feels lost. She wants to fight the 9th Order, but doesn't know where to begin. I told her she should take some time to find herself first. She's been so busy training all her life, she never got the chance to grow. We'll have to find some way to occupy her."

He laughed and she joined him before pinching him in mock anger. "I didn't mean it like that, though I do think it helps," she pointed out.

Ian hugged her tighter and commented, "I noticed how understaffed the city's new police task force is. Sarah said the main problem the chief is having is finding people who've experienced supernatural events. Dani might be able to fit in there."

She looked up at him curiously. "You want an assassin to become a cop?"

He gave a snort, "I was thinking as more of an independent contractor. They're so undermanned I think the chief might actually go for it. I'll talk to Solomon and see if we can't get them some more funding."

"Why would he want to help them?" she wondered.

"He wants Seattle to be autonomous," Ian answered. "Not only does that mean less reliance on an outside authority, but the police, as they stand now, are a hindrance to their operations. This is mostly due to their ignorance of what's going on. Both parties are working at cross-purposes at the moment, and you know how much business people hate inefficiency."

Ember sighed. "Just make sure you're not assuming too much about these people," she warned. "At their heart, they're out for themselves."

He smiled at her concern and they closed their eyes, enjoying the cool breeze and distant sounds of the city's nightlife. "So," he ventured, "you going to tell me what the late Ms. Devereux meant when she called me a son of Erebus?"

Ember stiffened, then let out her breath and relaxed. Finally, she let out a tired, cynical chuckle. "Necromancers think they know everything there is to know about the spiritual realm," she muttered. "They like to think it's just some pit stop souls make on their way to the realm of the divine -as if we'd all still be beyond the Black Gate if it was just a tiny matter of crossing into another plane of existence."

"Imagine the spirit realm is under water," she imparted. "It presses on us. The deeper you go the more pressure is applied. Souls, when they die, feel a pull to cross the Gate, just like someone swimming underwater with air in their lungs is pulled to the surface. Some fight against it, leaving strong impressions behind that become spirits, floating throughout the world aimlessly or imprinting themselves onto a location.

"For a demon that wants to come to this plane on their own they'd have to fight against all that crushing pressure, and even if they could survive that, without an anchor to bind themselves here they'd always feel a pull drawing them towards the Black Gate." She was quiet for a while. Then she said, "There are never-ending philosophical debates on the subject regarding the factor of time and space; whether the events that happen in the realm of the dead show the past or the future. The only thing that matters for you to understand is that the spirit realm is always changing, like eddies in a vast ocean."

"You are part of that changing world," she explained, "but because you are anchored here in this world as well you act as a constant. That's where your will comes in to play -you can cause those changes to occur. You can shift the water, pushing those wandering spirits out of the spiritual realm and into this one. You were able to pull me through the enormous depths separating your plane and that of the divine, willing it so the pressure didn't keep me there or crush me if I tried to fight it."

Ian nodded, starting to gain a vague understanding. "What's this got to do with Erebus?" he asked.

A sardonic grin formed on her face as she looked skyward. "It's not water," she said. "The ancient Greeks called it 'darkness.' What it actually is no one knows, nor does it matter. Where your kind has it wrong," she told him, "is that it's not the spirits you get your energy from, it's the darkness itself."

Seeing him furrow his brow, she stated, "You're channeling the darkness into this realm to maintain those spirits. You channel it as a fuel to burn your Spiritfire. That's why everyone is scared of your kind. You don't have billions of spirits worth of energy to draw on. You have the entire ocean those spirits reside in at your disposal."

Ian thought about that. "So," he ventured, working it out, "those spirits feel a pull to go back to their realm just like souls feel a pull towards the divine. That's why they can't survive here on their own; why when they manifest themselves and take action, they're burning energy that's no longer available to them." He remembered when he'd drained the power from those spirits around the vampire warren. If what she was telling him was true, what he was really doing was draining their energy and replacing it without him even knowing.

He leaned back and looked up at the clouds moving to obscure the Moon. He'd just had his view of the cosmos turned on its head. If what she told him was true, he'd only been using a small fraction of what he had available to him in an incredibly inefficient manner. Then she decided to screw with his head some more by telling him, "There is a particular meaning to the phrase the vampire queen used. I don't know how she learned of it, but I can guess it was while researching the necromancer that created the talisman."

"There were necromancers of old that had the willpower to take that darkness into this realm in its purest form. They had the discipline to shape it and use spirits to maintain its structure. In other words," she answered his confused expression, "they didn't need to find a corpse to reanimate. They could simply summon a body of shadow that a spirit could inhabit."

"Normally it would be human in form," she explained, "as spirits aren't the most inspired bunch and knowing how to control their body would have to be an ingrained instinct for them, but there were rare cases in ancient times of stranger, downright monstrous shadow beasts that made an appearance in an undead army."

Ian whistled. "And this chick thought I could do that?" he asked, stunned.

Ember laughed melodiously. "Oh, I 'know' you're like them," she assured him. "How else would you have created a flesh golem that regenerates himself. Where exactly do you think he's getting the mountain of flesh and cloth to pull that off? He's bound to you so he's able to take it without you even noticing."

She sighed and told him, a far-off look in her eye, "Necromancers didn't used to be associated with digging up corpses. They used to be praised for their abilities. All those old stories you hear about the ferryman guiding your soul across the river and ensuring it gets to the afterlife intact, helping you accept your death... That's you. That's what your kind used to do. There were no wandering spirits or lost souls. There were no Wraiths or Phantoms. The thought of a spirit in eternal torment would have been anathema to them."

She sat up slowly, staring at him with gleaming red eyes. "You will do great things," she murmured. "Just never forget that we are all mortal. The ancient necromancers who could do what you're able to didn't die of old age..."

Ian looked into her ageless eyes and nodded solemnly. Then a grin broke out on his face and he raised his head to kiss her, savoring her soft lips and teasing tongue. She grinned wickedly, her serious demeanor falling away. Her tail grew with her arousal, beating against his leg playfully. "I think they've rested enough," she observed. He matched her gleeful expression with one of his own and the couple went inside. Ember walked to the bedroom to see what Eris's tongue felt like. Ian approached a passed-out Dani and knelt between her legs.

* * * * *

In a blinding flash of arcane energy, the wizard appeared on the otherworldly plane. He looked around in awe as he saw countless pillars of rock floating above him as far as the eye could see. He felt a slight shift beneath him and realized the barren plain he was standing on was floating as well. All around him the featureless rock formations were framed by an orange sky that painted everything in warm colors.

Ahead of him, maybe half a kilometer in the distance, was a large bluff. Farther along and to the right lay the area the mystic's astral map indicated overlapped the area inside the United States. That would be the second place they'd need to construct a gate for the army to travel through, the first being where he now stood.

He took out the electronic monitoring device he'd been given which had needed to be specially protected to survive the journey. It read green across the board for having a breathable atmosphere, just as the mystics had predicted. He took off the rebreathing amulet and studied the distance with a frown.

His mother had been an illusionist and he had inherited some of her abilities. He drew on his power and conjured an image that sort of looked like himself. He grimaced at the blurry image, but decided it would accomplish the job. He sent it streaking towards the area the gate was supposed to occupy and opened a doorway for it to travel through.

It vanished in a captivating spectacle of color and sparks. He was able to feel his creation through the intact bond and a few seconds later the image of himself reappeared through the open doorway. He sighed in relief and bent over, hands on his knees, gasping for air as the exertion caught up to him. When he'd gotten his second wind, he turned back and opened a doorway back to China to report the success of his mission.

* * * * *

On top of the bluff, an invisible figure watched the intruder leave the plane through her modified M24 sniper rifle and let out the breath she'd been holding. If the man had walked a few more yards he'd of come upon the first of the traps laid into the earth. The Native American augurs had told them about these little backdoors into their country long ago. When the alarm spell had gone off, she'd been dispatched immediately to investigate and take account of the situation.

The seasoned witch took off her helmet and released her long flaxen hair from its confines. Sergeant Katie Miller of the US Army's Ghost Corps detachment took out a small mirror from her pocket and spoke the words to activate it. She reported all she'd seen and then deposited it again with a heavy sigh, knowing that she'd be out there for another few hours until her relief showed up.

She wondered about the augurs' predictions that there'd be an invasion force coming soon. It certainly matched the intelligence reports coming out of the east of suspicious large-scale movements. She thought about the Asian mystics and wondered if the Chinese knew that they knew about their plans and groaned as her head hurt.

No one really understood the various diviners: the mystics in Southeast Asia, the augurs in North America, the seers in the Nordic regions, the oracles of Europe, the soothsayers of Africa, the priests and priestesses of South America, and the Middle Eastern astrologers. They all stayed in their own communities and only really interacted with others when they had to, such as when their land was threatened.

Whatever the future held, she decided, putting the subject of mumbling old men and women high on vapors out of her mind, it would take its sweet time in getting there. Her job as a ghost was just to observe and report back. Unless she spotted the leader, she reminded herself. Then it was fire an enchanted bullet at their head and run like hell. She cracked a grin and looked down her scope in the direction the Chinese would be arriving from. 'Who knows,' she pondered, thinking about the upcoming battle. 'This might be fun.'